BLACK Sabbath will warm up for their grand reunion with a home-town show this month.

The metal pioneers play The 02 Academy on Saturday, May 19 – their first Birmingham appearance for 13 years – before heading off for the Download Festival at Donington in June and Chicago’s Lollapalooza in August.

And then it’s back to the studio to complete their new album – the ninth by the original line up and the first for 33 years – with multi-Grammy winner Rick Rubin in the production chair.

There’s still some confusion about whether drummer Bill Ward will join Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler for any or all of those projects.

Having originally opted out of the reunion he later insisted that he was prepared to return to the UK “at the earliest opportunity” to work on the album and the tour but the other three still seem to be working on the assumption that he won’t be involved.

Iommi, however, will be in action at Birmingham and Donington despite his ongoing treatment for lymphoma which means that guest guitarist like Slash and Zakk Wylde will step in for some of the upcoming European shows which have now been re-branded from Black Sabbath to Ozzy & Friends.

* Speaking of living legends, Robert Plant’s new band Sensational Space Shifters have long since sold out Tuesday’s show at Gloucester Guildhall, but they’ve lined up two more dates this summer – London’s HMV Forum on Thursday July 12 (tickets go on sale at 9am today priced £40 and £45 from 0843 221 0100 or www.hmv.com ) and the Womad Festival in Wiltshire on Sunday July 29 (full details from 0118 960 6060 or www.womad.co.uk ). The band includes John Baggott of Massive Attack and Portishead on keyboards, Liam Tyson of Cast on guitar/vocals and JuJu members Juldeh Camara, Justin Adams, Dave Smith and Billy Fuller.